Aiden Cermak and Daniel Schrock are the definition of “worlds apart.” It doesn’t get more different than agnostic and Amish, and no one is more aware of this than Aiden. The young Chicago journalist travels to central Illinois Amish Country to research an article and ends up as a house guest of Daniel and his family after an act of bravery leaves the Schrocks in his debt.

Aiden is drawn to the solemn and mysterious Daniel and decides to hang around Amish Country for a while longer, despite the risk of terrible consequences for Daniel. But Daniel’s suspect sexuality might not be the only secret he’s harboring, and as Aiden becomes more and more enmeshed in the community, he discovers that a hidden past may make it even harder for Daniel to face his emerging feelings. It may be impossible to build a bridge between their worlds—their only hope may be to carve out a world of their own.

Review:

Aiden Cermak was driving through the Amish country when he sees an out of control truck driver getting ready to smash into a buggy full of people. Aiden makes a lighting quick decision and swings his car in front of the buggy so the truck hits him instead. From there he gets invited to stay in the home of the Schrock’s for saving them. Aiden tries to decline the invite but Samuel won’t hear of it. He is very grateful for what Aiden has done.

“No greater man of God than he who lays down his life for another.”

Aiden becomes friends with the whole family, well everyone except the oldest son Daniel. Daniel has a hard time coming around, but once he finally lets himself have the friendship he wants with Aiden things get better between them.

We soon learn that Daniel had been married and lost his wife and child in a tornado. There are many things going on with Daniel that made me feel sad for him. He knows what he’s supposed to do with his life in the Amish community but he has all these weird feelings for Aiden. He doesn’t understand if it’s a test from God or what he should do about it. Aiden on the other hand knows how he feels about Daniel and even makes a decision to get a job at the local paper and move to Henry just to stay close to the other man, even knowing nothing can really come of it.

When Aiden starts getting a bit to nosey in a suicide case that happened years ago, people start to become angry. They don’t want him getting into their business and making them look bad. Daniel tries talking Aiden into dropping his investigation but to do that he has to tell him his big secret. Just when I thought it would finally happen for these two, Daniel gets scared and runs away. He leaves in such a hurry that he forgets to turn on his buggy lights and gets side swiped by an SUV. While he’s in the hospital he makes a hard choice and asks to be married to another woman. Aiden is hurt. In his mind he really thought him and Daniel had something special. With all the community upset with him and Daniel getting engaged he’s unsure what to do until Daniel’s father asks Aiden to stop hanging around their son. With nothing left for him he resigns from his job at the paper and moves back to his hometown in Maryland.

Many months pass when he gets an unexpected visit from his ex Conrad. Conrad wants him back after 3 years and Aiden considers it until he realizes that Conrad still doesn’t want the same things as him, so Aiden packs up his car and heads out to Montana to backpack through Glacier National Park. His second day in and he comes across a face he never thought he’d see again. Standing there in front of him is Daniel. Daniel was backpacking through the park trying to clear his head before he was to be married, but when he got there and saw Aiden’s car and then his name signed in, everything became clear to him.

“I can’t marry Tara. I’ll have to fly home and let her know. I’ll have to tell her face to face, that I can’t marry her. I figure I never could. After running into you out here…. If God doesn’t want for you and me…. Ach, then what does he want? I can see the clues clear now, Aiden Cermak. Finally, I can see.”

This book was not what I expected. I assumed it was going to be a sweet romance, and I’m sure to some it was, but it was all a bit bland for me. I really enjoyed all the details about what it was like living on a Amish farm. The Amish have always fascinated me and getting a look into their lives what pretty amazing.

20 thoughts on “Between Two Worlds”

Well, Paul, because a good book is a good book. And if you ask most authors, gay, straight, man, woman, or anything else on the spectrum, you’ll find the majority of them actually write without a specific target audience in mind. Okay, maybe non-fiction, how-to books are written with a specific target audience in mind. Even so, I don’t think they’d particularly mind if someone outside that demographic chose to purchase and read their book anyway.

Paul, as a female that reads, LOVES and reviews m/m books I would like to state that I have often wondered what gay men thought about this trend. I was curious whether gay guys had a problem with it. Do you? I think this would make for a very interesting blog post. Why do I like m/m? I love romance. I love hard fought battles for love. Sadly , still, gay love can be a torturous road which makes the love all that sweeter. I would never want to insult either gay readers or gay authors.

You know when I first joined some of the m/m author fan pages and found what seemed like a majority of the fans were women I had the same question. And a lot of my friends have the same question when I tell them of the various m/m FB groups I belong to and blogs that I read. What is it about m/m reads that appeal to women? These days the answer is simple. What’s not to like? I look forward to your blog post Barb.

I guess if non-Amish people like to read about the Amish, then non-gays can enjoy reading about gays. But there is one big difference–non-Amish readers don’t usually take the haughty position that they know what’s best for the Amish. As a gay man, I do find “fag hags” to be condescending, more often than not. BTW, I thought this book was one of the best depictions of Amish life I’ve come across. Yes, I’m one of those non-Amish who enjoy reading about the Amish more than gays!!

Paul, if you’re an author I wall make a point to absolutely never read and comment about any of your books. I’ll probably actually start with this book. I wouldn’t want to be condescending. Did you know that most Amish romances are written by Christian Fundamentalists and have glaring errors about Amish life the Amish find offensive? They’re called Bonnet Rippers. It’s a huge genre among the deeply religious. This is an interesting article. http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=1516&fulltext=1 I’m sorry you find us condescending. Thank you so much for changing the tone and calling us “fag hags.” I’ve only ever been called that with love before.

Did this review come off as haughty to you? It didn’t read that way to me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and this was hers on this book. I can see how you find it strange as many of my straight friends do but we can’t help but like what we like. I’m glad you liked the book. A lot of people did. We don’t read these stories to be condescending. We read them because we love m/m romances.

If we all stuck to reading books that were only about our own demographic, well, personally I’d have run out of reading material years ago! I’m not a kick-ass warrior woman, werewolf or vampire, yet I read Urban Fantasy. I didn’t live in Middle Ages, yet I read historicals. I’m not a spy, yet I read thrillers. I’m not gay, yet I read m/m. I enjoy a broad range of subjects and genres and don’t see why I need to be limited when choosing what I like to read. When reading m/m, I don’t consider myself a ‘fag hag’. I consider myself a reader. When I’m interacting with my friends who are gay, I don’t consider myself a ‘fag hag’. I consider myself a friend. I’m not sure why you find women who enjoy a love for this genre, or the friendship of men who happen to be gay, to all be condescending, but I’m sorry you feel that way.

Paul, Seems to me a better approach to make your point in this discussion, would be to discuss what you loved about the book. The personal attacks don’t address why you believe the reviewer missed the boat on this one, if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish here. If you want to name call and denigrate others, you’ve achieved that goal and hope you feel better. When one of us reviews a book, we state what we liked or didn’t like about the book. We do this as readers. We don’t tell the writer how to write.

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